Story of the Establishment of Lilly Borough
Find out how the community was formed.
This "History of Lilly" was taken from the
April, 1948 Lilly High Flash published by the students of Lilly High School:
"The first official record we have of the town of Lilly, Cambria country, Penna. is from the Journal of Samuel Maclay, surveyor, who with John Adleum and Timothy Mattach, was commissioned by the supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania in the spring of 1790, to make a survey of the Kiskiminetas, Conemaugh and Little Conemaugh rivers and a portage to the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata river, and to report on the practicability of constructing a line of water and overland highway from the East to the West. On the night of August 31, 1790 they encamped in a laurel thicket at the mouth of a run (Bear Rock or Bear Rock Run) and on the morning of September 1, 1790, their provisions being about exhausted on account of the failure of their pack-horse to come up, they divided some chocolate which was all they had left, and hastened onto the Galbraith road and down to the mouth of Poplar where they secured provisions.
They afterwards surveyed the Juniata and Frankstown Branch and surveyed part way up the eastern slope of the mountain for a portage to Lilly, but finding it too steep, the project was abandoned. The ultimate result was the making of the second Frankstown Road from Frankstown to the junction of the Little Conemaugh and Stony Creek.
The present site of Lilly was once a swamp, first settled by the German and Welsh who came for the purpose of farming. As early as 1806, a patent for 332 acres of land was granted to Joseph Meyer, or as Anglicized Joseph Moyers, and his wife for a grant of land that was designated under the name of DUNDEE and which was the first name given to our town. The Moyers, like all the pioneer families, worked hard for several years clearing out the land, building a grist mill and digging a mill race. This undertaking apparently proved too much for them for in March 1811, they sold the land to Simon Litzinger, one of the first millers of Northern Cambria.
In 1823 Litzinger sold these holdings in what was then Summerhill Township - for it was not until 1831, that WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP was erected - to Joseph Lilly. Since Joseph Lilly died soon after that, the right to the property descended to four of his sons, one of whom was Richard for whom the town was later named. In September of the same year these Lilly heirs in turn sold the in-land to a Philadelphia firm by the name of Eliher Chancy and Thomas Biddle and Co. Along about the middle of the 1840's, however, the president judge of this judicial district, Judge Thomas White, together with John C. O'Neil and George Ross, acquired the mill property and sixty acres of land which they later passed to James Conrad. This grist mill became known as Conrad's Mill and did a rather good business for miles around since quite a settlement had been made before this in the vicinity of what is now Lilly.
After 1830, with the beginning of the construction of the Allegheny Portage Railroad, another section of the community began to develop at the base of incline Plane No. 4 and was referred to as FOOT OF FOUR. Repair hands formed the nucleus of this community and they began calling the town LAUREL RUN on account of the laurel which grew along the railroad. As travel and business increased, a tannery was built on the site of the present Polish church and adjacent to the tannery a warehouse, in which building the post office was located. A sawmill was established to harvest the large stands of hemlock trees which populated the area. This bark gave off quite an odor which attracted the attention and remarks of the travelers who went through on the railroad. One Mr. Swank who visited here is credited with the suggestion that the town be called HEMLOCK.
In the year 1858, the New Portage Railroad was under construction and the cars from the Old Portage Railroad were transferred from the site of the original Dundee tract to the present site. For many years the light from Tiley's Coke yard could be seen at night over a considerable part of the county. This first opening was bought by Tiley from Michael Moyer, or Myers, who seems to have been the first one to open a coal mine in this district. In the later part of the 1850's and the early 1860's Jeremiah McGonigle also operated a coal and coke business. Coal was mined principally for the black smithing purposes and was transported across the mountains into Huntingdon and Bedford Counties in sacks on pack horses. With the opening of the Old Portage Road, however, came a new market for the coal business. Coal was used to fire the stationary engines at the heads of the planes. Lilly, of course, has the honor of being called the pioneer coal town of Cambria County, for a copy of the census for Western Pennsylvania for 1840 gives the number of coalmines in Cambria Country as 41, and of that number 35 belonged to Washington Township.
The coal industry, which thus began, and which governs and controls the lives of so many of us today received a track to the location of the New Portage Road where a family by the name of Richard Lilly lived. In coming from the foot of the plane over to the location of the New Portage Road people now called the place Lilly. When sixty citizens, only four of whom are living today drew up a petition for the incorporation of our borough, the name of Hemlock was not considered and on June 11, 1883, by a decree of the court of Quarter Sessions of Cambria County, our town became the BOROUGH OF LILLY in honor of Richard Lilly who finished the building of the grist mill. The post office, however, continued under the named Hemlock, until the year 1888.
At the time that Conrad acquired the grist mill and George Tiley and his sons began a coal and coke operation immediately below Conrad's Mill, the main line of the Pennsylvania railroad was put through Lilly. It crossed the Old Portage Railroad immediately below Lilly, and again at Summerhill, and united with Old Portage near the Argyle Tipple at South Fork. This railroad made our town a factor to be reckoned with in the steel and steamship ports of the world by facilitating transportation. It removed us from the isolation of a self-sustaining hamlet and brought us into the realm of knowledge, culture, and toleration, and it so linked our lives with the lives of those of other town, cities, states, and even nations, that our fortunes now fluctuate with the ebb and tide of all humanity. This then is the history of Lilly, a link and one of the first links in the world's great industrial chain."
"The first official record we have of the town of Lilly, Cambria country, Penna. is from the Journal of Samuel Maclay, surveyor, who with John Adleum and Timothy Mattach, was commissioned by the supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania in the spring of 1790, to make a survey of the Kiskiminetas, Conemaugh and Little Conemaugh rivers and a portage to the Frankstown Branch of the Juniata river, and to report on the practicability of constructing a line of water and overland highway from the East to the West. On the night of August 31, 1790 they encamped in a laurel thicket at the mouth of a run (Bear Rock or Bear Rock Run) and on the morning of September 1, 1790, their provisions being about exhausted on account of the failure of their pack-horse to come up, they divided some chocolate which was all they had left, and hastened onto the Galbraith road and down to the mouth of Poplar where they secured provisions.
They afterwards surveyed the Juniata and Frankstown Branch and surveyed part way up the eastern slope of the mountain for a portage to Lilly, but finding it too steep, the project was abandoned. The ultimate result was the making of the second Frankstown Road from Frankstown to the junction of the Little Conemaugh and Stony Creek.
The present site of Lilly was once a swamp, first settled by the German and Welsh who came for the purpose of farming. As early as 1806, a patent for 332 acres of land was granted to Joseph Meyer, or as Anglicized Joseph Moyers, and his wife for a grant of land that was designated under the name of DUNDEE and which was the first name given to our town. The Moyers, like all the pioneer families, worked hard for several years clearing out the land, building a grist mill and digging a mill race. This undertaking apparently proved too much for them for in March 1811, they sold the land to Simon Litzinger, one of the first millers of Northern Cambria.
In 1823 Litzinger sold these holdings in what was then Summerhill Township - for it was not until 1831, that WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP was erected - to Joseph Lilly. Since Joseph Lilly died soon after that, the right to the property descended to four of his sons, one of whom was Richard for whom the town was later named. In September of the same year these Lilly heirs in turn sold the in-land to a Philadelphia firm by the name of Eliher Chancy and Thomas Biddle and Co. Along about the middle of the 1840's, however, the president judge of this judicial district, Judge Thomas White, together with John C. O'Neil and George Ross, acquired the mill property and sixty acres of land which they later passed to James Conrad. This grist mill became known as Conrad's Mill and did a rather good business for miles around since quite a settlement had been made before this in the vicinity of what is now Lilly.
After 1830, with the beginning of the construction of the Allegheny Portage Railroad, another section of the community began to develop at the base of incline Plane No. 4 and was referred to as FOOT OF FOUR. Repair hands formed the nucleus of this community and they began calling the town LAUREL RUN on account of the laurel which grew along the railroad. As travel and business increased, a tannery was built on the site of the present Polish church and adjacent to the tannery a warehouse, in which building the post office was located. A sawmill was established to harvest the large stands of hemlock trees which populated the area. This bark gave off quite an odor which attracted the attention and remarks of the travelers who went through on the railroad. One Mr. Swank who visited here is credited with the suggestion that the town be called HEMLOCK.
In the year 1858, the New Portage Railroad was under construction and the cars from the Old Portage Railroad were transferred from the site of the original Dundee tract to the present site. For many years the light from Tiley's Coke yard could be seen at night over a considerable part of the county. This first opening was bought by Tiley from Michael Moyer, or Myers, who seems to have been the first one to open a coal mine in this district. In the later part of the 1850's and the early 1860's Jeremiah McGonigle also operated a coal and coke business. Coal was mined principally for the black smithing purposes and was transported across the mountains into Huntingdon and Bedford Counties in sacks on pack horses. With the opening of the Old Portage Road, however, came a new market for the coal business. Coal was used to fire the stationary engines at the heads of the planes. Lilly, of course, has the honor of being called the pioneer coal town of Cambria County, for a copy of the census for Western Pennsylvania for 1840 gives the number of coalmines in Cambria Country as 41, and of that number 35 belonged to Washington Township.
The coal industry, which thus began, and which governs and controls the lives of so many of us today received a track to the location of the New Portage Road where a family by the name of Richard Lilly lived. In coming from the foot of the plane over to the location of the New Portage Road people now called the place Lilly. When sixty citizens, only four of whom are living today drew up a petition for the incorporation of our borough, the name of Hemlock was not considered and on June 11, 1883, by a decree of the court of Quarter Sessions of Cambria County, our town became the BOROUGH OF LILLY in honor of Richard Lilly who finished the building of the grist mill. The post office, however, continued under the named Hemlock, until the year 1888.
At the time that Conrad acquired the grist mill and George Tiley and his sons began a coal and coke operation immediately below Conrad's Mill, the main line of the Pennsylvania railroad was put through Lilly. It crossed the Old Portage Railroad immediately below Lilly, and again at Summerhill, and united with Old Portage near the Argyle Tipple at South Fork. This railroad made our town a factor to be reckoned with in the steel and steamship ports of the world by facilitating transportation. It removed us from the isolation of a self-sustaining hamlet and brought us into the realm of knowledge, culture, and toleration, and it so linked our lives with the lives of those of other town, cities, states, and even nations, that our fortunes now fluctuate with the ebb and tide of all humanity. This then is the history of Lilly, a link and one of the first links in the world's great industrial chain."
July 29, 2010 - Lilly Lines
